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Knocking Live has arrived, the first formally sanctioned and Apple approved iPhone app to offer live video broadcasting over a 3G network. A peer to peer video streaming app that enables users to connect through Facebook, Knocking Live's arrival has been "long overdue" to some. But according to 9to5Mac, the app, which hit the App Store earlier this week, is still a bit buggy.

The major roadblock was that Knocking Live Video uses undocumented (and therefore unusable APIs) to stream video from iPhone to iPhone. Naturally, with the automated API checking tool, the app was rejected for this reason initially.

For obvious reasons, the debut of Knocking Live has come with tremendous fanfare, as the free (to the first 50,000 users) application providing this functionality has been on the typical iPhone owner's wish list for years. Promising to "eliminate the upload, send, download' process, establishing live, device-to-device connectivity," Knocking Live is certainly groundbreaking.

Although there is no shortage of speculation about how this particular app weaseled its way into the App Store, coverage from Ars Technica reveals that the app was initially rejected, a situation that prompted the app's developer, Brian Meehan, to reach out to Steve Jobs.

Why can't it be so easy for other developers to get the ear of Apple's CEO?

Meehan's impassioned email apparently prompted Jobs to personally review a demo of the app and ultimately push it through the approval process. The same article claimed that "an unnamed Apple exec" told Meehan that the company had flip-flopped on their earlier posturing and would now allow the app to be available in the App Store. That decision, apparently, came "directly from the top."

But Meehan was convinced that his app was worth fighting for. "When it was rejected, I decided not to give up and reach out directly to Steve Jobs via e-mail," he told Ars. "I reached out to Apple to reconsider our application due to its potential to culturally change how people share live moments phone-to-phone."

Will the still-buggy app pave the way for similar apps to get past the approval process? Since Apple has a history of being "less than consistent," nothing is guaranteed for now. But perhaps it's a positive sign for things to come.